A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land. William R. Hughes

       Mr. NIGHTINGALE'S DIARY.

Mr. Nightingale		Mr. Frank Stone, A.R.A.
Mr. Gabblewig, of the Middle Temple
Charley Bit, a Boots
Mr. Poulter, a Pedestrian and cold water drinker		Mr. Crummles.
Captain Blower, an invalid
A Respectable Female
A Deaf Sexton
Tip, Mr. Gabblewig's Tiger		Mr. Augustus Egg, A.R.A.
Christopher, a Charity Boy
Slap, Professionally Mr. Flormiville, a country actors
Mr. Tickle, Inventor of the Celebrated Compounds		Mr. Mark Lemon.
A Virtuous Young Person in the confidence of Maria
Lithers, Landlord of the Water-lily		Mr. Wilkie Collins.
Rosina, Mr. Nightingale's niece		Miss Kate Dickens.
Susan her Maid		Miss Hogarth.

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       Composer and Director of the music, Mr. Francesco Berger, who

       will preside at the pianoforte.

       Costume makers, Messrs. Nathan of Titchbourne Street, Haymarket.

       Perruquier, Mr. Wilson, of the Strand.

       Machinery and Properties by Mr. Ireland, of the Theatre Royal,

       Adelphi.

       Doors open at half-past seven. Carriages may be ordered at a quarter past eleven.

      It was from Tavistock House that Dickens received this startling message from a confidential servant:—

"The gas-fitter says, sir, that he can't alter the fitting of your gas in your bedroom without taking up almost the ole of your bedroom floor, and pulling your room to pieces. He says of course you can have it done if you wish, and he'll do it for you and make a good job of it, but he would have to destroy your room first, and go entirely under the jistes."

      The same female, in allusion to Dickens's wardrobe, also said, "Well, sir, your clothes is all shabby, and your boots is all burst."

       No. 141, Bayham Street, Camden Town, where the Dickens Family lived in 1823.

      Among the important works of Charles Dickens which were wholly or partly written at Tavistock House are:—Bleak House, A Child's History of England, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, The Uncommercial Traveller, and Great Expectations. All the Year Round was also determined upon while he lived here, and the first number was dated 30th April, 1859.

      Tavistock House is the nearest point to Camden Town, interesting as being the place where, in 1823, at No. 16 (now No. 141) Bayham Street, the Dickens family resided for a short time[2] on leaving Chatham. There is an exquisite sketch of the humble little house by Mr. Kitton in his Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil, and it is spoken of as being "in one of the then poorest parts of the London suburbs." We therefore proceed along Gordon Square, and reach Gower Street. At No. 147, Gower Street, formerly No. 4, Gower Street North, on the west side, was once the elder Mr. Dickens's establishment. The house, now occupied by Mr. Müller, an artificial human eye-maker ("human eyes warious," says Mr. Venus), has six rooms, with kitchens in basement. The rooms are rather small, each front room having two windows, which in the case of the first floor reach from floor to ceiling. It seems to be a comfortable house, but has no garden. There is an old-fashioned brass knocker on the front door, probably the original one, and there is a dancing academy next door. (Query, Mr. Turveydrop's?) The family of the novelist, which had removed from Bayham Street, were at this time (1823) in such indifferent circumstances that poor Mrs. Dickens had to exert herself in adding to the finances by trying to teach, and a school was opened for young children at this house, which was decorated with a brass-plate on the door, lettered Mrs. Dickens's Establishment, a faint description of which occurs in the fourth chapter of Our Mutual Friend, and of its abrupt removal "for the interests of all parties." These facts, and also that of young Charles Dickens's own efforts to obtain pupils for his mother, are alluded to in a letter written by Dickens to Forster in later life:—

      "I left, at a great many other doors, a great many circulars calling attention to the merits of the establishment. Yet nobody ever came to school, nor do I ever recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody. But I know that we got on very badly with the butcher and baker; that very often we had not too much for dinner; and that at last my father was arrested."

      This period, subsequently most graphically described in David Copperfield as the "blacking bottle period," was the darkest in young Charles's existence; but happier times and brighter prospects soon came to drown the recollections of that bitter experience.